Justice Society of America and Captain America

Out of all of Marvel's Characters, I think that Captain America would work the best in the DC Universe.  I don't know if it is his wartime origins or his unashamedly heroic personality, but he seems like he would be just as effective at leading the JLA or JSA as he does the Avengers or the Invaders.  It's probably his ability to see the best in others, and inspire them to bring it out. Whatever the reason, it would be interesting to see how he would interact with comicdom's first ever superhero team.

Batman and Red Tornado (Ma Hunkel)

The well known B&B cover which featured Batman protecting his new "partner", The Joker, was ripe for a re-do in this project, it was just a matter of finding the right character to replace the clown prince of crime with. When a buddy of mine requested Ma Hunkel, the original Red Tornado from the Golden Age, I thought it was just offbeat enough to work. Unfortunately there weren't a whole lot of images to work with, but I think I found a couple to fit the bill

I have to give Geoff Johns props again for finding a useful purpose for Ma Hunkel in todays continuity by making her the caretaker of the current Justice Society's headquarters, as well as being an inspiration to her granddaughter, Cyclone.

Batman and Infinity, Inc.

I am amazed that with the resurgence of the JSA in the past decade that DC has still not reprinted the first 12 issues of Infinity, Inc. Hopefully that will be rectified soon because those are some of the best comics of the 80's and contain some absolutely gorgeous Jerry Ordway artwork.

My one disappointment with the series was that the Earth-2 adult Robin did not play a larger role, he was always a favorite character of mine. At least he is back from his Crisis induced oblivion in a way, as seen in the recent Justice Society of America Annual - apparently there is a new Earth-2 out there with classic versions of all the JSAers and Infinitors. Hopefully we will see more of them.

Batman and Mr. Terrific

The Michael Holt Mr. Terrific is one of my favorite versions of a legacy character at DC. I really enjoyed his introduction in the excellent Spectre series by John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake and was disappointed when the character looked to languish in comics limbo when that run ended. Fortunately Geoff Johns and James Robinson decided to use him the the newly revamped JSA and his popularity and exposure have risen since.

I always got a kick out of his predecessor, Terry Sloane, as well. I remember being truly shocked when the killed him off in an issue of Justice League of America - that was back when comic hero deaths were rare and permanent. I am glad I came up with a cover concept to use them both.

Batman and Doctor Mid-Nite & The Atom

Earth 2. If you have never read a single comic book, just hearing that term opens up a world of possibilities. A second Earth, where things turned out familiarly, yet quite differently at the same time... It was very appealing to me as a young reader. So there is no surprise that I was a huge fan of the Justice Society and all of its members.

Doctor Mid-Nite had no Earth-One counterpart and The Atom was the same in name only to the one he had, so they had even more of an air of mystery about them. The JLA/JSA team ups to me were the big events of my time. This cover was no request, just something I would have wanted to see on the stands when I was a kid.